Posted on 07/31/2013 6:00:17 AM PDT by IbJensen
More than 100 people were protesting outside a McDonald's in south St. Louis at lunchtime Monday, the first in a series of wildcat strikes and walkouts that are planned to ripple across the region over the next two days.
The protests are part of a national campaign to push for higher wages for fast-food workers and are expected to hit dozens of stores between now and the end of the day Tuesday, culminating in a rally downtown in Kiener Plaza. Workers are advocating for wages of up to $15 per hour, a hike to Missouri's $7.35 per hour minimum wage and the right to form a union without retaliation.
In an interview Monday morning, one of the strikers, 19-year-old Doneshia Babbitt, said she hopes the protests will draw attention to the challenges of making ends meet on jobs that pay less than $8 an hour with no benefits.
"I hope this helps people understand, I hope they get the picture," said Babbitt, who'll be a senior at Jennings High School in the fall, along with her 20-year-old sister, helps support three younger siblings on a job at McDonald's. "A lot of people working these jobs really need the money."
The fast-food protests are being organized by local labor and church groups and are taking place in six other cities this week as well. Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from the Atlanta area, flew in to lend his support as well and said federal legislation is needed to reform an industry that profits handsomely off the backs of low-wage workers.
"It's obscene," he said, pointing to profits and executive pay at big fast-food companies. "And it's not the kind of system that's working for people."
A spokeswoman for McDonald's referred questions to the National Restaurant Association, which had no immediate comment Monday afternoon.
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Activists and fast-food workers are planning more protests for higher wages this week.
Less than two months after workers walked out of dozens of fast-food restaurants in May, a new round of walkouts and street marches are set to start Monday in the St. Louis area. Organizers say there could be walkouts at as many as 50 stores, and have a rally planned for Kiener Plaza downtown Tuesday afternoon.
The push is part of a broader national campaign for higher wages and better working conditions for fast-food workers. Similar protests are planned this week in at least six other cities, including Chicago and Kansas City.
I must be missing something. If it were I, I’d fire anyone and everyone that didn’t show up for work and hire a batch of senior citizens that are looking for something to do.
because these idealist idiots think McD can raise the price of burgers by a “mere” $.68 (not to mention raising the prices of the other food items) and still sell the same number of hamburgers
That’s not how Econ 101 works. For every penny the price goes up, some number of sales goes down. Certainly McD has this figured out
If you haven’t been patronizing these business as often as my family (2 teenagers) you might not have noticed how much business has already fallen. I know we skip it a lot this summer since taking 3 of us there now costs over $25 for “fast food”, and the parking lot and drive through are usually looking very empty
The only tipping point that Rep. Hank Johnson needs to worry about here is at what point it’s more cost effective to fully automate the fast food process.
So then they’ll just go on welfare and vote to get themselves higher benefits for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (as opposed to “next to nothing”)
Great solution!
Excellent post.....what you describe takes initiative...I know that word is slowly becoming archaic. .
Unfortunately, in many subcultures in american...uncle sugar daddy makes that word meaningless....
The new word is “getsmedat”....
exactly the same thing that happened to Lightolier, a local manufacturer of lighting fixtures. management told the employees, who were getting good wages, and working conditions that if they voted to unionize, that they would close. been closed for well over a decade now.
I know an Engineer who has been working for nearly seven years in a top-secret skunkworks to develop the all-robotic fast food cook station.
It is still not a reality. That tells me that a) the company behind this quakes in fear of the political repercussions, or b) despite their best efforts, it still
ain’t working right.
That's how it works and that's what these jobs are FOR. While in college, I had any number of these BS low pay jobs and never ONCE did I think my work was worth more or could command more. It was what I had to do to pay for the night classes and college tuition. Even once I was out of college, I had to take a class at a local tech prep school, because I couldn't type and no matter whether I had a degree from college, I STILL had to know how to type. So, that's what I did with my evenings until I could get a better and full time job.
NO ONE ON EARTH was meant to raise a family on one of these kinds of jobs and if you INSIST on bearing children while in a low paying or part-time job - don't’ come crying to ME.
This is the 21’st Century and we know by now, how NOT to have children.
great idea!
Exactly. One summer when I was in college, I moved furniture for the minimum wage ($1.60/hr) plus whatever I could earn if a van showed up at the warehouse at 5 pm and the driver needed help to deliver the load after hours. After that summer, I vowed to finish college so I wouldn't have to do that kind of work for the rest of my life.
The Law of Supply and Demand was left behind, but our schools seem to keep the Doneshias and Rachel Jeantels for the long haul.
America’s problem is that we have too many people who cannot produce enough value to pay for their own needs. It would be unrealistic to expect everyone to carry their own weight, but we need at least a large percentage doing so. Increasing real wages will not occur without seriously reforming education, taxes, regulations, and entitlements; reducing the costs and liabilities that discourage employers from hiring; and, reducing the labor supply by stopping immigration and reversing illegal immigration.
But Obama’s economic plan is to subsidize a large and ever-increasing segment of the population by borrowing or forceably redistributing the savings of successful earners, not by making more people successful. There is no light at the end of this tunnel, but it does stop in Stearnsville.
I hope Doneshia buys her mom some birth control.
So many don’t realize that those types of success stories occur at McDonalds and other places all over. Kids start a summer job, work hard and show some interest, and they can become a manager and eventually owner.
When my son started his 1st summer job this year, I told him the secrets to a summer job for kids are: (1) be on time; (2) show/fake some interest in the work; (3) do what they tell you to do; and (4) shut up. The older employees don’t expect the summer help to be experts, but if the help do those 4 simple things they can become valued employees.
He followed the strategy and he’s been asked back for next year. No benefits, but it can be a 40 hr/week job (if he wants to work 40) and a buck above minimum wage. He may not make a career out of the company, but it’s a possibility if he continues to do those 4 things.
He said he stood in line to apply for the job and worked his butt off for $2 an hour and was happy for the chance to do so.
He said he tried to learn everything about the place and worked his way up.
He was the manager of the place at the ripe old age of 16 1/2 years.
PS...He was also in High School school at the time!
Excellent
(excerpt) "Morelix looked at McDonald's 2012 annual report and discovered that only 17.1 percent of the fast-food giant's revenue goes toward salaries and benefits.....Thus, if McDonald's executives wanted to double the salaries of all of its employees and keep profits and other expenses the same, it would need to increase prices by just 17 cents per dollar, according to Morelix. " (end excerpt) Genius calculations, there!
Do other in-kind businesses spend 17.1% of their revenue towards salaries and benefits? What is the highest percentage spent on employee's salaries and benefits, in what industry?
I went to a science/technology museum last weekend, and near the cafe area there was a completely robot-operated kiosk serving frozen-yogurt. You insert cash or swipe a credit card, pick your options via touch-screen, and watch the robotic arm extract a cup, hold it under the yogurt dispenser, move it to the correct toppings dispenser, move it back for more yogurt, move it back for another topping, and put it in a revolving door for the customer. A small crowd of people stood around to watch, and a frequent comment was that this was probably the wave of the future in food service.
This is funny, St Louis is on par with Detroit. And McDonald’s has long advocated Affirmative Action and are themselves disproportionately minority owned and operated. Anyone can just search out McDonald’s 365black program and learn for oneself.
Given the behaviors that are becoming more widely known following the Zimmerman acquittal I tend to avoid some areas and restaurants more and more. McDonald’s is on the decline and their consumer ratings show that.
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